‘My legs give way before my lungs’

‘My legs give way before my lungs’

Follower Richard, when asked what his biggest struggle on the bike is, wrote back saying :

“My biggest problem is that my legs always give way before my lungs in an XC race. To be specific I feel I have a lot more to give on the breathing side of things but my legs always give up the ghost first.

Don’t get me wrong I’m training hard and I am racing at a reasonably high level but wondered if there is something specific I should be working on”

So first of all, this advice applies to everyone, NOT just those racing.

It’s quite common this with Mountain Bikers. There are

a couple of main areas I would look at.

First of all… you need to increase your lactate tolerance.

​​​​​​​This is the amount of time it takes for your legs to start burning.

A couple of good ways to do this :

– Intervals with a high resistance. Pick a HIGH resistance that you can only manage to hold 60-80 rpm at with your max effort. Do that for 60 seconds (you should be flagging about 40 seconds in), then rest for 2 minutes (low resistance and chilled) and repeat 5-10 times.